I wanted to refrain from posting my review until I received my final grade. Let me tell you that I am beyond surprised that I have a B-. I am appalled to think about how giant the curve had to be. I did not do well on either midterm or the final. I had only taken precalculus in high school and was nowhere near prepared for this class.

I will say this, often you could tell that Rachel was passionate about what she was teaching. Unfortunately, she falls into the elite class of academics that are knowledgeable yet do not know how to explain concepts clearly. This is not a great quality for a math professor, especially not one that teaches a foundational calculus course.

She was vague when she would answer questions, skirting around answering directly. We were wary that maybe she did not know what she was talking about, often reading off of a piece of paper to write on the board. Many times she would make computational errors or write down incorrect equations, but who doesn't make mistakes here and there.

It is true that the exams were nothing like the homework or problems given in the lecture. I can only assume she combined many concepts into the limited problems in the test. Surely this would be fine if we were adequately prepared; we were not. A lot of the exam questions were theoretical.

The homework itself was not time-consuming or strenuous, completely manageable. Unfortunately, it was not helpful.

I am not naive enough to know that it was possible to do well in this class. There were students that received As. However, it is frustrating to have a professor that is not going to be helpful in your learning. If you want to succeed in this class you need some sort of combination of prior knowledge of calculus, a tutor, help from the TA, and help from online sources.

As for Rachel herself, she is a very sweet person. However, I think she was personally affected by some of the comments we expressed during our reviews, even stating that she felt disrespected. Hopefully, if you take this class in future quarters, she will have had reflected on her teaching style and abilities.

I personally would not take this class unless you know you have a prior foundation in calculus and will do well.

To describe Rachel's Calculus teaching ability would be like describing COVID-19, horrific. Rachel has no clue what she is talking about 100% of the time and copy/pastes Wikipedia word for word into her powerpoints and expects you to understand it without question.

Rachel stated that she moved here from Israel within the last year and her English shows. I understand it is not her first language, but if you are getting paid 6 figures to teach rudimentary calculus, please please please know what you're talking about and how to say it in English, not Hebrew.

I took Calculus in high school and received an A; however, I have never been more confused in my life in a math class. Rachel confuses herself and stops at the board for 5+ minutes to look at the work she has written down on her notes. When a student has a question, she goes back to the slide and rereads the slide, never answering anyone's question.

Her tests are damn near impossible for anyone. The averages were roughly 50 and 52% on both midterms. Most people in this class have also taken calculus before, which shows Rachel goes out of her way to confuse her students and make the tests unbearable.

For all things that are good in this world, DO NOT DO NOT DO NOT take class from her. Suffer through the 8am like I should have. Rachel, I hope you please read this and realize you need to stop teaching.

I wouldn't recommend taking Math 31A with Greenfeld. Even if a lot of material is covered in high school, her lectures are very difficult to follow as she sometimes seems to be just as confused as her students. This is a requirement for many majors and other classes, so take it with a good professor.

While I was very dissatisfied with her teaching when taking the class, now in hindsight I think that this class is very manageable in comparison to other teachers and classes. I took AP Calc AB in high school, so this class was mainly just a review for me. I didn't really go to her classes, because her lectures were reiterations of the textbook and I didn't understand her at all. However, the practice tests she gave us and homework were similar to her midterms. In this sense, it is very easy for a student who has taken AP Calc AB to self-study their way through this class, even without going to her lectures. I would suggest for students who are taking 31A to choose a different professor if you have not taken a calculus class before. If you have taken AP Calc AB or a similar course, then taking this class wouldn't be as bad as it sounds. I barely studied or went to the classes, but I still did fine.

I had professor Greenfeld in her first ever year of teaching, and it definitely showed. Professor Greenfeld, unfortunately has a very strong accent which makes her difficult to understand. This was my first class ever at UCLA, which truly made me disappointed and confused. If you could take another professor please do so.

I took AP Calculus AB and BC, earning 3's on both exams, respectively. Per UCLA's rule, a 3 is unsatisfactory and I was forced to retake this class. Despite of that, I earned a B- in this class, while I earned A's in high school. Greenfeld has a way of truly confusing her students beyond comparison. I would often leave her lectures extremely confused, despite having learned the material before. When people would ask her questions in class, she would dance around the question or even respond in a way that did not make much sense, possibly she misunderstood what we were saying.

The Homework for this exam is not too hard, but it is VERY time consuming. I believe the TA's would grade one or two problems from the entire set of 10-15 problems, so it was definitely hit or miss. On her exams, she offered 10 points extra credit for everyone. Even with that, the average scores for exams were abysmal, around 54% for midterm 1 and 62% for Midterm 2. This just goes to show how difficult students had it in understanding the material.

She had a review session for the midterm, which consisted of her going over one remann sum problem for one and a half hours, a total waste of time. To put the grades into perspective, I scored the following: 75% on Midterm 1, 42% on Midterm 2, and a WHOPPING 53% on the final. Despite of that, I earned a B- in the class. Idk if I should be complaining honestly, but dang the curve on that thing must have been huge.

All in all, in my short time (1 year) at UCLA, Professor Greenfeld has truly been the worst professor I have ever had, definitely a GPA killer. If you're pre-med please don't make the mistake I did by taking the Math 31 series.

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This class was a literal nightmare. I hate to say it, because Professor Greenfeld was really sweet, but it was just terrible. I took AP Calculus in high school, and I remember thinking during the first lecture, "Wow, this is all review. How ridiculously easy!"

I was very, very wrong. Professor Greenfeld does seem like an intelligent woman, but her lectures leave much to be desired. She has an accent, which isn't a huge issue, but combined with her constant "umm"s and illegible handwriting, I rarely understood what exactly was going on during lecture. She would cover the basic definition and a few example problems for whatever the day's topic was. Her in-class examples often were very simple conceptually and numerically.

The homework, however, was a completely different story. Keep in mind that electronic devices and calculators are not allowed for exams. The funny part is that the vast majority of the assigned homework problems require a calculator. And the problems were still typically pretty time-consuming, even if you cut corners. I hated this because I felt that I was always struggling to finish and cared more about turning it in than actually understanding the concept behind the problem. Basically what I'm saying is that lecture does not prepare you for the homework, and the homework does not prepare you for the exams. I failed both midterms, but so did a lot of the class. The average was pretty bad, even though there were 60 available points and your score was out of 50 (this works in your favor and a bunch of people still failed)

One of the only redeeming qualities of this class was my discussion sessions, and that obviously depends on the TA. Mine was great and did his best to completely reteach a week's worth of content in 50 minutes.

The final was way easier than both midterms, and we were allowed to use on side of an index card for notes. I'm assuming this is because of how terrible grades were. This and the curve is what saved me, but I'm telling you, if you can avoid taking 31A with Greenfeld, do it. If you get stuck in this class, good luck :')

While Professor Greenfeld seems to care about her students in some ways and I am sure she is a nice person, I feel the general consensus of the students, and especially me, is confusion and frustration with the teacher. When we ask questions in class, she gets defensive about her teaching and ends up not explaining what was asked (I assume from not understanding our questions as her English is not great). She encourages us to do homework assignments, which are helpful and necessary, yet she tells us frequently that the exam questions will be exactly like those we do on homework. After taking two midterms and the final, I can assure you these homework questions are nowhere near the difficulty of exam questions. I feel that I am teaching myself the content (my TA helps so much as well), but I am using my notes from the calculus class I took last year. I have attended every lecture, every discussion section, and every TA office hours. I am learning primarily from my TA and myself. After most lectures, I am lost and frustrated. I can safely say that I have left only a few lectures with a somewhat clear idea of what we had just learned. In addition, the professor writes very small and often with poor handwriting on the board and I have been ignored numerous times when I have raised my hand to ask if she could write it larger. I am beyond surprised to have received a B- in this class after failing (yes, failing, as in 52% and 53%) one of the midterms and the final. The curve must have been immense to make up for the mass confusion of all of her students. I took calculus last year, and I struggled greatly with Greenfeld, so I would advise not taking this class unless you have a very firm grasp of calculus prior because you will likely be teaching yourself during this class.